Bucharest

Bucharest (Rou:București) is Romania's capital and the industrial and commercial centre of the country.

Bucharest lies in the southeast of the country on the Dambovita River. With a population of roughly 2.5 million and an urban area of only 226 square kilometres (87 sq mi), Bucharest has the dubious distinction of being the densest city per capita in the EU. Easily the largest city in Romania, Bucharest is actually the 6th largest city in the EU by population.

Romania, as assmued or wish to assume people already know, is a country in Southeastern Europe bordering Hungary and Serbia to the west, Ukraine to the north, the Black Sea to the east and Bulgaria to the south. It is populated primarily with Romanian-speaking Romanians.

Romania first became a nation-state in 1859 with the territorial merger of Wallachia and Moldavia. It's independence was recognised in 1878 and several border changes would ensue over the 20th century. In 1918, following the close of WWI, Transylvania, Bukovina and Bessarabia (otherwise known as today's oft-forgotten Republic of Moldova) were incorporated into Romania, however the Moldovan territories were soon stripped away from it when they were occupied by the dastardly USSR after WWII.

As hinted at above, Romania was led by an communist leader named Nicolae Ceausescu for 25 years, whose style of communism was more similar to North Korea's Kim Jong II than the rest of Eastern Europe. After the most violent overthrow of communism to take place in Europe, Romania wasn't exactly the fastest former communist country out of the gates. A series of slow-developing economic, political and social reforms did eventually lead to its joining the NATO alliance in March 2004, however, thanks to its location and coastline looking like a handsome place for air and naval bases. The country's failure to push ahead quickly enough with reforms left Romania off the list off new EU members that same year - a list which included most of Eastern Europe. However, in April 2005 Bucharest got the blessing to sign the EU accession treaty and managed to sneak into the clubhouse on January 1st, 2007. Romania has the 9th largest territory in the EU, the 7th largest population, and the largest inferiority complex of all member states.